In Phase One of this unit, we studied a variety of short stories and poems with an initial focus on the authors’ and poets’ choices of narrative points of view and techniques. Within this framework, we then examined how the authors and poets use literary elements and devices including plot, character, setting, syntax, diction, tone, imagery, mood, symbol, irony, allusion, figurative language, rhythm and meter to convey theme. We will conclude the unit by taking an indepth look at the use of literary techniques in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and at how film adapts certain literary techniques to its medium to convey theme in Akira Kurosawa's film, Rashomon.

Social attitudes, customs and expectations often demand behavior based upon appearances rather than reality. In such circumstances, the individual's need to maintain appearances in meeting these standards affects his or her perception and/or portrayal of the truth. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Akira Kurosawa's film, Rashomon both examine the relationship between human nature and the elusiveness of truth.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold reads much like a Greek tragedy in that events proceed in an unforgiving inevitability. The novella is wrapped around the marriage of Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman, a relative wealthy stranger to the Colombian town. The night of the wedding, Bayardo suddenly returns his new bride to her family because he discovers she is not a virgin. Angela's brothers, Pablo and Pedro, force their sister to identify her perpetrator and she names Santiago Nasar. From that moment on his death is foretold. Almost everyone in the down knows the murder will occur but no one speaks up.

The work is loosely based on a 1951 Sucre, Colombia incident. Marquez has said:

When the event took place in 1951, I was interested in it not as material for a novel but as a newspaper article. But that genre wasn’t very well developed in Colombia at the time, and I was a provincial journalist on a local paper which wouldn’t have been interested in the matter anyway. I started thinking about the case in literary terms several years later, but I always had to bear in mind how upset my mother would be at the very thought of seeing so many of her friends and relatives in a book written by her son. Still, the truth of it is that I wasn’t really griped by the subject until, after I’d chewed it over for many years, I discovered the vital ingredient–that the two murderers didn't want to commit the crime and had tried their utmost to get somebody to prevent it, without success. This is the only really unique element in the drama, the rest is pretty commonplace in Latin America. A later cause for delay was the structure. In real life [Garcia Marquez means in the chronological sequence of this fictional story], the story ends nearly twenty-five years after the crime, when the husband comes back to his rejected wife, but it was always clear to me that the book had to end with a meticulously detailed description of the crime. The answer was to introduce a narrator who could move freely through the novel’s temporal structure: I wrote in the first person, for the first time. So what happened was that after thirty years I discovered something we novelists tend to forget–the best literary formula is always the truth. [From Repertorio Espaniol Study Guide for Cronica ]

On January 22, 1951, Cayetano Gentile, a handsome medical student of Italian parents, was murdered by the brothers of Margarita Chica Salas. Her husband, Miguel Reyes Palencia, had earlier returned her to the home of her parents. The brothers were not twins, the husband was not a stranger, but son of town landowners;the marriage took place at the insistence of the brothers, who were fishermen; Cayetono went down to the port the morning of his death to see the newlyweds off on their honeymoon; the real couple never united.

Donald Morales, Ph.D.,Professor of Literature, Mercy College http://www.mercynet.edu/faculty/morales/chronicledeath.html#summary

Discussion Questions

Chapter One

1. What role does the narrator play with regard to his relationship to the characters and the events he is investigating? What effect does the temporal point of view have on the narration?
   
   
2. How do such elements as the dreams and predictions described in Chapter One make reality subjective for both the characters and the reader?
   
   
3. What questions remain unanswered? What role does irony play in this chapter? How does the use of subjective reality overshadow the facts, and what effect does this have on the narration?
   
   
4. How does class consciousness control every important issue in the novel from the treatment of women to the motive for murder? How do the attitudes of the various characters contribute to the inevitability of Santoago Nasar's murder? Is the author making a statement about the role of class in Latin American culture?

Chapter Two

1. How are male and female gender roles represented in Chronicle of a Death Foretold ?  How do such concepts as marriage, virginity, or honor differ for the male and female characters in Chronicle of a Death Foretold ? 
   
   
2. How are the machismo codes of honor and behavior among men and women demonstrated through the characterizations of Angela Vicario and Bayardo San Roman and the events surrounding their "courtship" and wedding?

Chapter Three

1. "There had never been a death more foretold." How does this statement relate to the codes of honor and behavior, which are described in the novel, and the need to maintain appearances?

Chapter Four

1. In what ways do such phenomena as dreams and odors function as moral indicators in Chapter Four?
   
   
2. What conflicts does the need to maintain appearances cause? What opportunities does it create?
   
   
3. What statement might Gabriel Garcia Marquez be making about reality and perception with regard to the story of Angela Vicario's life after her failed marriage?

Chapter Five

1. What thematic concerns might Gabriel Garcia Marquez be addressing in his portrayal of the townspeople's behavior prior to Santiago Nasar's murder and his portrayal of the effect it had on them?
   
   
2. Why does the author provide such a graphic description of the death?

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Rashomon is a frame tale constructed by Akira Kurosawa from two stories, "Rashomon" and "In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. With regard to his film, Kurosawa said, “Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. This script portrays such human beings --the kind who cannot survive without lies to make them feel they are better people than they really are.” Rashomon won the Grand Prix at the 1950 Venice Film Festival and became one of the first Japanese films seen by Western audiences. Its complex use of point of view has made it a favorite subject of film studies.

Discussion Questions

1. Who tells us the story? The Priest? The Woodcutter? Both? Why do we not hear the magistrate's questions or responses?
   
   
2. Discuss the portrayals of "human nature" by various characters. How valid do these remarks seem to be in relation to the events in the film?
   
   
   • It's human to lie. We can't even be honest with ourselves (Commoner)
     
   • I don't mind a lie. Not if it's interesting. (Commoner)
     
   • Men are so weak... that's why they lie (Priest)
     
   • Women lead you on with their tears. They even fool themselves (Commoner)
     
   • Everyone wants to forget unpleasant things, so they make up stories (Commoner)
     
   • Goodness is make-believe... forget the bad stuff (Commoner)
     
   • The Demon fled in fear of the ferocity of man (Priest)
     
   • Women are weak by nature (Commoner)
     
   • If men don't trust each other, this world is hell (Priest)
     
   • In the end you cannot understand the things men do (Commoner)
     
   • If you are not selfish, you can't survive (Commoner)
     
   • All men are selfish and dishonest. They all have excuses (Woodcutter)
     
   • You can't afford not to be suspicious of people these days (Woodcutter)
     
     
3. Using your film log as a guide, discuss the motivation behind each character’s different version of the story. Did all four tell the truth as he or she saw it? Ultimately, how can we tell which is true?
   
   
4. Beside Kurosawa's interesting manipulation of points of view, he also composes interesting images. How does the variation between extended takes and dynamic cutting, frenetic movement and static composition work with the different story tellers? What pattern does he seem to favor when framing the characters? How does this pattern work with the plot to accentuate the tension between characters?
   
   
5. Why is the last scene entitled “Redemption”? What message is the viewer left with at the end of the film? What symbolism does Kurosawa use to reinforce the film’s final message?
   
   
6. Film directors employ many of the same kinds of techniques (structure, point of view, imagery, metaphor, symbolism, mood, tone, diction, syntax, etc.) writers use to develop theme. Generate three substantial discussion questions about the relationship between the film’s themes and the specific techniques Kurosawa used in creating Rashomon